<!DOCTYPE html>
<HTML lang="en">
    <HEAD>
        <title>Letters home</title>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <style>
            BODY {
                width:30em;
                margin-left:5em;
                margin-top:5em;
                margin-bottom:5em;
            }
            </style>
    </HEAD>
    <BODY>
        <p>Chapter 3. <B>Letters home</B></p>
        
        <p>Adam soon realised that their teachers had gone easy on them the first week, to allow the first years to settle in. In the second week, academic difficulty was ramped up, and he soon began to struggle.</p>
        
        <p> Brother James was the maths master. A West Indian, he retained a very West Indian outlook on life. So he was always smiling and relaxed, until he felt some slight to his authority, when he suddenly launched into attack mode. Everyone, monks and pupils alike, knew him as &quot;Brother Jumbo&quot;, though he was always &quot;Brother James&quot; to his face,and in conversations between monks and children.<BR>  &quot;Now who can do a sum like dis?&quot; asked brother Jumbo, putting a long division on the board. All the children slowly raised their hands.<BR>
            &quot;Very good&quot;, said brother Jumbo, &quot;now like dis?&quot; putting another long division onto the board. The hands went up again, more slowly.<BR> &quot;Sir&quot;, said Adam, &quot;I don't see any difference between that one and that one.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Dis one you need do by hand, dis one you can simplify. Now do you see de difference.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;But Sir,&quot; said James, &quot;aren't they both still divisions?&quot;  &quot;Now don't you be cheeking me. Adam, you understand the difference? This one you can do by hand, this one you must simplify.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Yes Sir, I think so sir. I can do both of those long divisions.
                    &quot;<BR>
            &quot;Very good. Here is the prep. Six long divisions.&quot;</p>
        
        <p>He handed out sheets with six multi digit long divisions. Adam had done long division before, at primary school, so was confident when he went into prep. The exercise took him only twenty minutes to do, and he spent the rest of the time composing the first letter home to his mother.</p>
        
        <p> The next day it was maths again. Brother Jumbo took in the sheets and marked them. Everyone had got five or six correct, except Mandy who had three out of six. Ibrahim had got none right, and Adam had got one. Brother Jumbo was unemotional as he handed the work back.<BR>
             &quot;So,&quot; he said, &quot;most of you are master of the long division. Except two, maybe three.&quot;<BR>
             At this Adam began to feel tears stinging at the back of his eyes. He had felt that he had got the sums correct, but they had come back wrong. Worse, almost everybody else, including Abagail, had got a relatively high mark. He tried to choke back the tears. The rest of the class looked, and then looked away, embarrassed.<BR>
             &quot;As I said,&quot; said Brother Jumbo, &quot;most of you are master of the long division, so we need not spend too much time on it. Now fraction, this also you should have learned in the primary schools. Adam, why are you crying?&quot;<BR>
             &quot;Come on Adam,&quot; said Mandy, &quot;Ibrahim did worse than you.&quot;<BR>
             Still the tears would not stop. Brother Jumbo continued with the lesson.<BR> &quot;Adam,&quot; he said, &quot;stay behind one minute&quot;.<BR>
             &quot;Now Adam,&quot; the mathematics master continued, suddenly a lot less West Indian, &quot;I am not angry with you just because you had difficulty with this exercise. You must not cry.&quot;<BR>
             &quot;Sorry sir&quot;, said Adam, through clearing tears.<BR>
             &quot;I see you know the basics of long division. You will soon make fewer mistakes. Now dry your eyes and go to your lesson&quot;.</p>
        
        <p>The next lesson was science. The teacher was brother Kieran. He was a neat, smooth cheeked man who grew sideburns. He always smelt of aftershave, which gave him a rather un-monkish aura. He decide to have a go at Adam.<BR>
            &quot;This diagram is disgusting&quot; he complained, &quot;I expect diagrams in pencil, not in ink. And use a compass if you are drawing the world. Do it again.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Yes sir,&quot; said Adam, numbly.<BR>
            &quot;Now we know that cold air is heavier than hot air, and cold air accumulates at the poles, because the sun's rays have further to travel through the atmosphere to get to the ground&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Please Sir?&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Yes Adam.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;The amount of light the parts of the Earth receive from the Sun is the same. So the amount of heating should be the same. Law of conservation of energy like we learned in the first lesson.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;I suppose so Adam&quot;, brother Kieran thought for a minute, &quot;but the amount of radiation reaching the surface is reduced, and the ground acts as a store of heat. Or maybe the total amount of air at the poles is relatively greater. I'll get back to you on that one, Adam. Anyway, what I wanted to say, for the rest of you, was that the cold air is heavier than the hot air, so it moves down the surface of the Earth, creating a wind from the poles to the area around the Equator. Now what do we call these, anyone?&quot;<BR>
            &quot;The prevailing winds?&quot; suggested Mandy.<BR>
            &quot;Very good&quot;.</p>
        
        <p> &quot;You really had him on the hop there&quot; said blonde Mary, as they moved out of the lesson. &quot;Could you not see he was desperate not to show, like, he didn't have a clue what you were on about?&quot;<BR>
            Previous to coming to St Tom's, Adam had considered himself pretty good at almost
            every subject. Now science seemed to be the only thing he could do. Maths was
            hopeless, English essays kept coming back with tons of errors, history hardly counted
            since it was only two periods a week. However the subjects that were really
            emphasised were Latin, music, and religious studies. Latin Adam found difficult.
            Music was a basket case, because he had no hand to eye co-ordination. Unlike most of
            the other children he could not play a musical instrument. Nor could he sing. That
            left religious studies. But it was strange, almost a non-subject, dealing with
            feelings one day, passages of scripture the next, and Church history the next. What
            exactly, Adam wondered, was Father Eugene trying to teach them?</p>
        
        <p> Cecilia composed a letter to her parents.</p>
        
        <p>'Dear Mummy and Daddy,' it ran,  'I am most unhappy here at St Tom's and will you please take me away instantly. The food is awful. The other children threw me into the sea at night and Father Abbot made me go on a punishment run when I said I didn't like it here. My legs still are aching. The other girls do not like me.<BR>
            Love,  Cecilia.</p>
        
        <p>Cecilia looked at it for a while. The bit about the other girls not liking her, was it really true? It might irritate Daddy to know that. Better cross it out. That made the letter messy.<BR>
            &quot;No,&quot; she thought, &quot;I need something well argued.&quot;</p>
        
        <p>'Dear Mummy and Daddy', she began,  'I have now been over a week at St Tom's. I consider that long enough to tell you what I like and do not like about the place. My best friend is blonde Mary. She is called that because there is another Mary whose father is a doctor. Her parents are in the film industry.'  'There is a lot of bullying here. On the first day we were thrown into the sea. It was very cold and I still have a chill. Some of the girls have very bad backgrounds. For instance Mandy is a charity girl. She has no father and her mother is in prison with a drug addiction. She was too badly behaved for a children's home so they had no-where to send her and sent her here. I like her personally but do not feel you would want me mixing with people like that. Abagail and the other Mary (short Mary) are also aggressive. They got the boys to make a waterboard to torture another girl. I am glad it was not me. This is because they do not have loving parents like I do so behave aggressively. Again I don't think you would want me mixing with people like that.  The food is horrible and when I said I didn't like it here Father Abbot made me go on what they call a &quot;punishment run&quot;. You have to run round the island in under fifteen minutes. I made fourteen but my legs are still aching.  I hate it here and hope that you will agree that the experiment has been a failure and will take me away. Father Abbot said I can leave whenever you say so.  Please look after Fidelis and Trumpert. know they will be missing me and this is another reason to go home.</p>
        
        <p> Your loving daughter,  Cecilia.</p>
        
        <p> Cecilia stuffed the letter into an envelope, intending to address and stamp it later. She didn't seal it in case she changed her mind. The letter went on top of her locker in the dorm.  Now blonde Mary was also writing letters home. She had two to write, and took two envelopes from the school office. Annoyingly, she scribbled her father's Spanish address over one. He was, of course, in the States, making a new film. She saw what she thought was a spare envelope on Cecilia's locker, and decided to pinch it. There was a pink slip of paper inside.</p>
        
        <p>&quot;Cecilia's letter home&quot; thought blonde Mary. Knowing that she shouldn't she decided to read it.<BR>
        &quot;So I'm Cecilia's best friend&quot; she thought to herself with amusement. &quot;News to me.&quot; There was even better to come.<BR>
        &quot;Mandy sweetest,&quot; said blonde Mary, &quot;read this.&quot;<BR>
        Mandy got a nasty shock. &quot;The two-faced little bitch&quot; she said to blonde Mary, &quot;that's what she really thinks of me, is it. Thank you for telling me this, Mary.&quot;  Somehow Mandy couldn't cry, though she wanted to so badly. She started her own letter to her mother.</p>
        
        <p>Dear Mummy,  I know you will be proud of me. I have started my place at St Tom's. It is much better than a children's home, because here I have the chance to learn things instead of just being with other losers and nutcases. I suppose I'm a bit of a loser myself because not all the girls like me, but some do, like blonde Mary. Her parents are rich, like really rich, not just accountants and doctors like most of the girls but really millionaire parents. And she is nice and she likes me. Then Abbey, she likes me but she sneaks a bit. But short Mary doesn't like me being here but I don't care too much because she is not who she thinks she is. There is just one girl who I thought liked me but really hates me, but I don't mind because nobody likes her either. She is spoilt and just says all the time how unhappy she is. The boys they are OK.  Mummy, I think of you all the time, and how hard it must be for you in prison. Know that I am happy here and look forward to you being out when we can be back together again. I think they might let me stay at St Tom's over Christmas rather than going back to the home.</p>
        
        <p> Love,  Mandy.</p>
        
        <p> The censor at Styal women's prison read the letter, and tore it up. &quot;No contact&quot;, he told his colleague. &quot;Someone's finally decided to give a chance to that poor girl&quot;.</p>
        
        <p>&quot;Dear Mummy, I have had waterboarded a girl who was tormenting me. She was an American so I don't care&quot;<BR>
            Adam broke into peals of laughter.<BR>
            &quot;Abbey, you can't send that. Who would believe you? Or if she did, she'd have you pulled out as fast as you can say 'jack rabbit'&quot;.<BR>
            &quot;Unless Alex told her not to,&quot; said Abagail, &quot;he's got too much influence over her. But Adam, I can't say half the things that have happened. You're an embarrassment to me, sneaking and always crying. Mandy accused me of sneaking on her, you realise that, because of you. It rubs off on me. Oh look, I'm sorry if I make you feel inadequate. That's just how I feel. Maybe it was a mistake to come to the same school together.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Abbey, don't say that&quot; protested Adam.<BR>
            &quot;Just try to be less pathetic, that's all. And don't hang about me all the time.&quot;</p>
        
        <p>Abagail composed a short, matter of fact letter to her mother, and then cried herself to sleep that night.</p>
        
        <p>Adam was irritated. He wanted to hit Abagail, but you couldn't hit girls. Not even a sister.<BR>
        &quot;Someday soon she'll need me&quot; he thought to himself, &quot;but she's not always there for me. He went into the chapel to pray. It was empty, of course, when there were no services. Adam found himself going into the chapel more and more often, as a relief from the intensity of the dorm and Calefactory. He never met any of the other boys there, though it was in bounds at all times. He looked at the crucified body of Jesus on the cross. &quot;What does this say to us?&quot; he wondered. &quot;What are we, who don't seem to be able to make ourselves happy in this life?&quot; A thought came to him, &quot;Are you happy now?&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Yes,&quot; he replied, &quot;I am.&quot;<BR>
            Adam rose from prayer. There was another squabble over the games console in the Calefactory. He got out the long division questions from the previous day. Looking through them, he could see where he had gone wrong. Five silly, trivial mistakes. One right answer.<BR>
            &quot;Hey Adam&quot; said a prefect, &quot;you're not supposed to do prep during free time. Put it away.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;Sorry&quot; said Adam.<BR>
            &quot;One hundred lines, 'I will not do prep in free time'&quot;<BR>
            &quot;You serious?&quot;<BR>
            &quot;I'm serious&quot;.<BR>
            There was no prohibition on doing the lines in free time, however, so Adam filled up his time.</p>
        
        <p>&quot;I think he is too sensitive&quot; said Brother Dominic, &quot;there's just no point having someone who cries on the least provocation somewhere like St Tom's.&quot;<BR>
        &quot;Reluctantly, I'd agree&quot; said brother Jumbo, &quot;he has the makings of a perfectly competent mathematician, but he hasn't been well taught. And it is nowhere near as strong as his science, which shows extraordinary insight for one so young. But he wasn't even bottom of the class, and he was in floods of tears. He won't survive here. You'd best send him home.&quot;<BR>
        &quot;And Abagail?&quot; said Father Abbot.  &quot;No problems&quot; said both of the monks.<BR>
        &quot;Somehow I find that difficult to believe. They are twins. What would be the effect of removing one of a pair of twins from St Tom's?&quot;<BR>
        &quot;I just don't know&quot; said brother Dominic, &quot;does Adam depend on Abagail? Somehow I don't think so. I just don't see it. He's a loner, he depends on himself. Does Abagail depend on him? Maybe in some hidden way. I wouldn't like to say.&quot;<BR>
        &quot;Well I've had one request to leave the premises from little Miss Cecilia, but in the absence of such a request from Adam I think we'll have to leave it for the time being, don't you think so brothers?&quot; said Father Abbot. &quot;But keep me informed.&quot;</p>
        
        <p>Cecilia received a letter back with the next supply boat. It was signed by both her mother and her father. It read.</p>
        
        <p>'Dear Cecilia,  We are sorry to hear that you are not happy at St Tom's. However remember that the other girls may not have all the advantages that you have, and might be afraid to show their feelings. Care especially for Mandy, she must be feeling very lonely and isolated, as the only one in her position. We are not afraid of you mixing with bad company, remember that you are good company to them.</p>
        
        <p>As for being thrown into the sea, Daddy says that these things happen. The important thing is not to resent them. You may hate it at the time but in future life you will look back on this as a happy time of your life. Mummy however will be writing to Father Abbot to demand an explanation. Be assured that we care for you and will support you in every possible way.</p>
        
        <p>If you really dislike the school you need not stay more than a whole year. We have spent the fees now and would not want to waste them. And your academic work will be coming up.</p>
        
        <p>Daddy hopes for some profit from the new partnership, so there will be lots of presents awaiting you at Christmas. Fidelis and Trumpert are OK, but Fidelis misses you. Hang in my little one (this is Daddy), we love you always.</p>
        
        <p> Your loving parents,  Mummy and Daddy</p>
        <p>&quot;They said I could leave if I disliked it, now they say I have to stay the whole year&quot;, said Cecilia, crossly to herself. &quot;And all my arguments have just been dismissed. Not even answered. They've cheated on me all the way through, especially Daddy. Now how am I going to live in a place that I hate?&quot;.</p>
        
        <p>Sebastian had written to his parents, &quot;I expect you'll find that the spartan joys of monastic existence are more raved about in your memory than by me.&quot;<BT>
            He got a decent letter back, mainly about his father's old school days. It had all changed since then, of course.<BR>
            Ibrahim was worried. There were political problems in Pakistan, and his parents, as Christians, were extremely vulnerable. He had been sent to Scotland partly for safety. He tried not to let it show, but every time a new bulletin came on the television involving Pakistan his heart stopped a beat. He also digested websites on the internet. Since they were in Urdu they passed through the St Tom's firewalls unscathed, and he was able to read about rapes and massacres without missing pages.<BR>
            &quot;Pray&quot; advised Adam, &quot;just pray hard for your folks&quot;.<BR>
            &quot;The problem with Pakistan is too much prayer&quot; replied Ibrahim, &quot;if everyone could be atheist the world would be a much better place.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;But you believe in God&quot; said Adam.<BR>
            &quot;Yes, I believe. I said if everyone was atheist the world would be a better place. That's not the same as saying I don't believe in it. I don't want to flick out like a light switch when I die. But that's just my selfishness.&quot;<BR>
            &quot;It's not selfish to want salvation&quot; said Adam.<BR>
            &quot;How is it not?&quot;<BR>
            Adam could find no answer.</p>
        
        <p>Albert wrote a letter describing the waterboard, but pretending it had been just a demonstration, then tore it up and wrote another one full of descriptions of the boats on the jetty and the science labs.  James' parents had been through a nasty divorce. His father was a university professor and now living with another woman. His mother received a hefty maintenance award, which his father resented paying. He was always accusing her of spending the money on herself, which wasn't fair. He also accused her of obstructing access arrangements, which was a fair accusation. Eventually he obtained some court order prohibiting her from leaving Wales, and giving him more visiting rights to James. Sending James to St Tom's killed several birds with one stone. First it meant his father now had to pay his share of school fees for him as well as maintenance during the holidays, then it meant that he didn't have the access he had hoped for, since his father was not to see him whilst he was at school. Finally James himself had wanted to go, and his father couldn't exactly stand in the way of that. So he ended up at St Tom's.  James was beginning to wonder what he had been thinking. In some ways he revelled in his freedom from home, but to be honest, what freedom was there really? The freedom of a small island, and then really only on Sundays. The work was getting him down. He'd imagined that school would be all sneaking out of dorms at night, practical jokes, and fights. In fact it was work, work, work, punctuated by periods of prayer, and the monotony got to him. James was talented academically, but he didn't particularly care for any one subject. He could sing, in fact was under consideration for the choir, but he got almost nothing out of worship. So why had he asked to come to a monastic school? OK, it had to be Catholic because his father was a Catholic, though a non-practising one. His mother was nominal Church of England, so his father insisted on a Catholic school. St Tom's was relatively cheap. He had sat with his mother and a pile of brochures, and chosen it by himself. Because it was by the sea.  Anyway, he rattled off cheerful letters, almost duplicates, to both his parents. He wasn't going to let his growing doubts show.</p>
        
        <p>&quot;Am I bored&quot; said Adam, next Saturday. The novelty and excitement of the first week had worn off. Amy was back in action, the fears of permanent psychological damage obviously grossly exaggerated. Mandy's escapade was now forgotten, and everyone was fed up with Cecilia. Except Mandy, who was sharpening knives for her, though no-one knew this at the time. There were no &quot;activities&quot; he looked forward to, partly because he didn't like sport. He decided on cross-country running, which was about the only thing he was any good at. They went in a minivan loaded onto the boat to a course on the mainland, so at least it got him off the island for a while. But despite having only one lap, his time was last. Which wasn't unexpected for a first year.</p>
        
        <p> &ldquo;Do woodwork&rdquo; said Albert, &ldquo;instead of cross-country&rdquo;.<BR>  &ldquo;But I'm good at running&rdquo; said Adam.<BR>
            &ldquo;But not as good as a dog&rdquo; said Sebastian, &ldquo;what's the point in spending all your Saturday running round and round, doing something a dog could do better?&rdquo;<BR>
            &ldquo;I'm no good at making things&rdquo; said Adam.  &ldquo;Are you better or worse than a dog at woodwork?&rdquo;<BR>
            &ldquo;Better&rdquo;<BR>
            &ldquo;Then there you are then. You're better at woodwork than you are at cross country. Do woodwork with Albert.&rdquo;<BR>
            Albert grinned. &ldquo;You'd be a real help to me Adam, you can always do far more with two than with one.&rdquo;<BR>
            So Adam went to see Br Peter and agreed that henceforth his Saturday activity would be woodwork. </p>
    </BODY>
    </HTML>
